Thursday, January 29, 2015

The Middlesex North Registry of Deeds reopened this morning after being closed for two days due to the recent blizzard. Snow began falling in Lowell on Monday night and continued through to Tuesday night, leaving 33 inches by the time it ended.

Because the registry is located in the Superior Courthouse in Lowell, when the court is closed, we must also close. By late Monday afternoon, the Administrative Office of the Trial Court had announced that all courts in the Commonwealth would be closed all day Tuesday and on Tuesday night, it announced that all courts but those in the four western counties (Berkshire, Hamden, Hampshire and Franklin) would remain closed on Wednesday. As far as I can tell, all courts are open today.

School was cancelled in Lowell today, however, which made it easier to get to work. Parking is a challenge, especially since the city of Lowell's onstreet parking ban remains in effect.

More snow is forecast for this evening, but it seems like it will be more of a nuisance than an impediment.

Tuesday, January 06, 2015

Yesterday was my 20th anniversary as Register of Deeds of the Middlesex North District. It was on January 5, 1995 that I took the oath of office for the first time. My tenure has passed so quickly that the actual anniversary date slid by unnoticed.

Due primarily to the information revolution that has coincided with my time as register, the changes in operations from 1995 to now have been substantial: no more books, everything available on the internet and electronic recording are some of the biggest changes.

The change process is far from over. This is the registry's 160th year of existence and all of them have been spent at this same location, but when the new judicial center opens in Lowell (hopefully in 2018) the registry will move into it. Technical changes are also on the horizon. These include linking registry records to those of the local assessors to provide true one-stop-shopping for land-related information. Electronic recording which now accounts for nearly 40% of our incoming documents will continue to grow with municipalities likely to embrace the technology as a means of filing documents such as tax takings and lien certificates in the next year or two. Electronic signatures and notarizations should also become a reality during the same time. Even registered land recordings could find their way into the electronic recording process. There is much to be done in the coming years.

Monday, January 05, 2015

The number of documents recorded electronically dropped in
2014 compared to 2013, but that was a function of the drop in overall recording
numbers – they were down 20% overall – since the percentage of documents
recorded electronically held steady at 38%.Having started electronic recording in 2005, we now have ten years of
experience with the technology.Here is
how it has grown over time, showing the year, the number of documents recorded
electronically, and the percentage of all document recordings the e-file total
constitutes:

Of the 20,306 documents recorded electronically last year,
2169 (11%) were deeds, 5260 (26%) were mortgages, 4729 (23%) were discharges,
and 8146 (40%) were “other.”For
documents recorded by all means – electronic, by mail, and walk in - the
percentage breakdown changes.Of the
53584 documents recorded last year, 12% were deeds, 17% were mortgages, 19%
were discharges and 52% were “other.”This suggests that when the refinancing market rebounds the percentage
of documents recorded electronically will increase significantly since
mortgages and mortgage discharges are more likely than most other documents to
be recorded electronically.

The busiest days for electronic recording in 2014 were
September 30 (182 documents), May 30 (171 documents) and June 30 (169
documents) came in by that method.The
largest percentage of electronically recorded documents (58%) came in on June
4, October 3 and November 5.Electronic
recordings accounted for 50% or more of daily recordings on 25 of the 247
recording days in 2014.

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